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Wild Cherry

For over ten years now, I’ve tried to write a sakura (cherry blossom) poem every spring. Though I started this poem early in the spring when the trees were still in bloom here in the Reno area, they’ve since greened and gone to seed. As a new parent, it has been more challenging than ever for me to focus my time and energies as I would like, hence the slow writing process. Another thing I try to do every year is to complete a poem on my birthday, which I’ve managed to accomplish here.

Wild Cherry

for Joy

Each hour with you is a blossom
  on a dark wood cherry tree
bursting light from the silence
      of wood grain mystery

Each week that passes between us
  is a twig on that dark wood tree
swaying on gentle breezes
      like foam adrift on the sea

Each season we share together
  is a branch from which they grow
bright as a cloud in the darkness
      reflecting the full moon’s glow

Each year that shimmers behind us
  is a limb that holds on high
moments arrayed in a splendor
      that rivals the dawning sky

And lifting it all like a prayer
  is the trunk that widens through time
rooted in layers of meaning
      that nurture the living shrine

The particular species of cherry used for inspiration here is prunus avium, or wild cherry—sometimes called sweet cherry.

Publication History:

California Quarterly — Summer 2023

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I must be

One may be able to infer from these words the nature of an inner struggle. It is a struggle that has endured in one form or another since childhood. Now that I’m a father, now that I look every day on my baby son and experience the wild array of emotions that come with watching him coalesce and evolve, this struggle has become all at once completely inane and yet all the more intense. It is winter. My one method of preference is exposure. Yet I have a powerful new reason to cope with the fears and uncertainties that have plagued my being for as long as I can remember.

I must be

I must be more than memory,
   more than just a name,
more than faded echoes cast
      from pictures in a frame.

I must be more than faint suspicions
   coiled in the heart,
smoke-like apparitions drifting
      through a starless dark.

I must be more than supposition,
   more than just a guess,
fashioned from a dust that fell
      through years of emptiness.

I must be more than stories told
   by uncles, aunts and kin,
anecdotes of vague recall
      from time beyond your ken.

I must be more than fantasies
   of how things might have been,
conjured up to fill a void
      that widened in my stead.

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October Moonrise

I happened to visit a storefront a couple weeks back that’s nestled in the eastern foothills of the Sierras along I80, a few miles west of Reno. Soon as I pulled up, I noticed the full moon and realized my luck. I hurried my way into and out of the store so I could hang out a while and take in the view. As I did so, watching every subtle change for 20 minutes or so as dusk rose up to meet and overtake the moon, I couldn’t help but notice that not one of the several dozen people who came to make a purchase from this store so much as looked up to take notice of this spectacular scene unfolding before and around them. In some ways I felt sorry for these people, in other ways frustrated. How does one not notice such splendor? How does one stand before the throne of God and see nothing? I thought that impossible strains and terrors must be burdening and goading these poor creatures along to render them so incapable of seeing this rare panorama that perhaps occurs only once a year.

October Moonrise

large and silent the full moon hovers over
a pine studded ridge just inside the gray
purple haze that marks the closing
                                        edge of night

dark citrine plates climb high into a pair
of ponderosas where they reach out to join
spiky tufts of green that overhang and
                                        frame the moon

overhead cloudless skies still resonate
the deep cool purity of day as ravens
quietly fan claw-like wings up the canyon
                                        home to roost

that hazy rim rises faster than the moon
it folds like an eyelid ever so slowly
on the all-seeing gaze of Odin’s singular
                                        ice blue orb

a few of the keenest stars begin to burn
through darkness that gradually creeps
up from the long horizon like a distant fog to
                                        touch the moon

cars pull to a pause in the newly paved lot
people emerge thumbing their phones
to the store and back never once lifting
                                        up their heads

i sit on a rock by the concrete walkway
eyes struggling to take in every nuance
chest riven by surreal resonance with
                                        all i see

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Three Thumps

This is in some ways inspired by my reading the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Not the content aspect of it so much as the storytelling aspect. During the few months it took me to work my way through the tales—yes, I’m a very slow reader—I gained several valuable insights into the overall nature of storytelling and how it can be approached in poetic form.

This is the longest highly structured poem I’ve written. I hope you’ll enjoy.

Three Thumps

Each day she walks through old white oaks and laurel trees
where often on a park bench just beneath their leaves
she sees an older fellow sitting casually,
a book held in his hands not far above his knees.

She finds him always lost amid another world
that turns from page to page as slowly it unfurls
against the backdrop of his mind, the letters curled
in hands as weathered as a pair of walnut burls.

Just recently she chanced to see him as he closed
the covers of a tome to which he held his nose
for several weeks there on that bench within the grove
where leafy shadows played across his rustic clothes.

This caught her eye because just then he lifted up
the words within those pages like a sacred cup
before his deep gray eyes, as reverent as a monk,
then tapped it thrice above his brows with ringing thumps.

At this, she couldn’t help her curiosity
and found herself approaching him to ask why he
would thump the words he pondered on through recent weeks
against the seat of all he shuns, accepts and seeks.

She asked, and he was more than just a touch surprised,
for in his reverie he had not realized
that anyone observed with penetrating eyes
his tendencies and speculated strange surmise.

But, still, he thought, she is a young and vibrant thing
to be so free and open with her questioning;
there is no harm in what she asks or answering,
so I will tell her what this little custom means.

“It came about,” he started, “very long ago,
before I climbed through youth onto this high plateau
that rises steadily above the years below
to stop at cliffs that overlook a great unknown.

“I found myself absorbed into a text then, moved
by all I read, my youthful understanding soothed
as seeds of insight sprouted, grew and came to bloom
within the subtext of my soul and all I knew.

“When every word had danced its way throughout my thoughts—
their twirling motions still reechoed in the halls
of mind—I wondered how much knowledge would be lost
to time and slip beyond the powers of recall.

“Then all at once I thumped the book against my head
and asked the ones who govern life that I forget
not one small passage, phrase or word from what I read
so wisdom may inform the days that lie ahead.

“At this new thought I thumped the book a second time;
for wisdom shapes the waterways through which a life
will flow, and more than ever now I wanted mine
to move through channels carved by what I found inside.

“Then one last hope occurred while still I held the tome,
that any insight gained this way would on its own
bestow good fortune on all days to yet unfold;
and so I thumped it one last time to drive this home.

“Since then, whatever I might read, when all is read,
I pause to three times thump the text against my head,
the first for memory, so though I’ve reached the end,
I’ll always bear in mind the best of what was said;

“The next for wisdom, peerless pearl of peace of mind,
that when affixed within the crown bestows a sight
that guides the wearer of the jewel, however blind,
to paths and possibilities of greater kind.

“The last for fortune, that the understanding gained
from studying the thoughts therein would somehow change
the course of life ahead, the days that still remain,
in ways that mitigate calamity and pain.”

He stopped, his salt and pepper beard now motionless,
and saw her dark brown eyes were lost in all he said;
at least a minute passed in silence; sunlight etched
mosaic patterns through the leaves all round the bench.

A ruby dragonfly came drifting near, then soared
abruptly off to fade above a nearby sward;
at last he added, “Now you know the reason for
this little custom you observed and how it formed.”

While he was talking, she had dusted off a place
to sit beside him on the bench and contemplate
the words he used in answering and to explain
why he would shock the front edge of his thinning pate.

She listened to his every word and did not stop
his monolog to interject a single thought;
but now that he had finished with his long response,
a silence thickened like a slowly rising fog.

At length the silence overcame her taciturn
consideration of his luminescent words;
and so she crossed a knee beneath her business skirt
to turn and thank him for the story he unearthed.

She told him that she doesn’t normally approach
and question individuals whom she doesn’t know,
but that his habit was so foreign to behold,
she couldn’t help but stop and ask him to disclose.

She stood and thanked him once again and wished him well,
then carried on across the park to where a swell
of skyscrapers emerged above the green—a realm
where dreams are sectioned off to rot in flat gray cells.

He watched her walk away and vanish like a mist
that dissipates when rising sunbeams shine amid
the vapors, causing them to glow and fade in wisps,
then rose himself, returning to his daily niche.

Throughout the day she answered phones, composed reports,
attended meetings, cultivated strong rapport
with all who shared her daily hamster wheel perforce,
and navigated storms of deadlines port to port.

Throughout the day the old man’s words reechoed back
to her attention, while she worked, and overlapped
with mental focus leveled at the daunting task
of satisfying expectations and demands.

Until at last the day was over, and she found
her feet retracing steps through verdant, well-kept grounds
toward where she lives across the other side of town,
that bench now still beneath midsummer evening boughs.

She pulled a book from out her shoulder bag to read
as she commuted through the darkness on a stream
of light that arced and paused below unresting streets
until she heard her station’s name and left her seat.

As she ascended concrete stairs back to the light,
the sun began to set and cast its colors high
on wavy cirrus clouds that fanned across the sky;
again the old man and his words returned to mind.

She reached the steps that rose to meet her townhouse door
and climbed them to the comfort of her covered porch;
she fumbled for her keys, and then her spirit soared
to be at last surrounded by her own décor.

She kicked her heels off in the entry way and left
her keys atop an ash wood corner stand, intent
on eating something small before she got undressed
to soak away the strain of unrelenting stress.

When all was done, she found her shoulder bag downstairs,
still hanging from her grandma’s dark-stained oaken chair,
half pulled out from the matching dining table where
she hung it when she first got home and freed her hair.

From this she pulled the book she read while on commute,
its pages nearly finished, nearly all suffused
throughout her intellect, her intuition fused
with understanding raised by every page she viewed.

This book was given to her by a long-time friend
who felt its words would calm her thoughts and help to mend
her spirit from a recent tragedy that leapt
from nowhere to assault her days with grief and dread.

She took it to her room and propped herself in bed,
and just inside an hour finished all it said;
she closed the leaves and pondered everything she read
then suddenly she thumped it once against her head.

“For memory,” she thought, “that every word may shine
like stars, however far away, throughout all time
to light the plains and valleys of an open mind;”
and then she raised and thumped the text a second time.

“For wisdom, too,” she thought, “without which all I’ve learned
would be of no more use to me than bridges burned
where chasms gape or surly waters leap and churn;”
then one last thump she gave the book to make a third.

“And, yes,” she thought at last, “for fortune—certainly—
a cosmic shift within the roiling karmic sea
that alters all potential futures yet to be
toward something better than what waited formerly.”

She sighed, a perfect comfort sifting through her chest,
and placed the book atop the nightstand by her bed;
she reached to turn the light off, feeling oddly blessed,
and turned to drift into a nearly dreamless rest.

This is all developed from a habit I formed some years ago. Whenever I read a book I really enjoyed and felt I gained something from, I do have a tendency to give it a few taps against my skull, just in case osmosis is a real thing.

Structurally, this poem is written in iambic hexameters from the first line to the last. Whether or not you scan the lines strictly as iambs somewhat depends on your accent, but I took accentual variation into account as I wrote this. For instance, most people I know pronounce “every” as “ev’ry”, but there are plenty who clearly enunciate that middle syllable. Though it throws an anapaest into the line for those who do so, it doesn’t throw off the overall flow of the poem. When I write a poem to meter, I intend for the lines to be read naturally. It should not be necessary to force the meter. Nowhere in this poem will it be necessary to invert the natural accent of a word or phrase. Where weak accents occur—a quantitatively short syllable despite the accent—it’s fine to scan them as weak for a “short” hexameter. I weigh such lines and read them aloud several times before deciding whether or not to keep them. This creates variation in the otherwise overpoweringly iambic lines. I’ve also used enjambment to throw off the expectation of meter in a few places in order to disrupt the “iambic trots” a little. As you read, you can allow the meter to disconnect briefly through this process as a sort of syncopation. This is intentional, and also used for rhetorical impact.

The end-line scheme all the way through is aaaa, but not rhyme. Instead the focus is on end-line assonance, with variations within the scheme involving rhyme, alliteration, and/or consonance.

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the resting place

Imagery and metaphor do not express ideas and emotion; they evoke ideas and emotion. What’s interesting about this is that those who read rarely even realize that these thoughts and feelings have been evoked from—not transmitted to—them through this process. As a poet, I’ll sometimes look for imagery and metaphor that evoke from me feelings and ideas similar enough to the original inspiration to consider it worth sharing.

But, I also recognize that what each reader will experience from my words will be unique to them. So, while the poem may be “mine” from the standpoint of having authored it, the poem is also yours from the vantage point of reading and experiencing all it evokes.

the resting place

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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The Early Cherry Blossom

The idea for this poem came to me about two weeks ago, which I thought could really blossom with a little patience and care. So I put the other poem down that I’ve been picking at for a few years and got to work. This poem represents what I think of as an “open metaphor”, in that what is depicted here should bear different meanings for different people.

The Early Cherry Blossom

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.
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Gitche Manitou

Gitche Manitou is an Algonquian (Amerindian language group encompassing many tribes) phrase meaning all of “great spirit”, “great mystery”, and “great entity”. Manitou on its own subtracts “great” from these transliterations. This poem explores these three aspects of Gitche Manitou, and then some—Hence the title.

Gitche Manitou

  Before the first breath stretched my lungs,
  I felt throughout my entity a
  resonance that filled the mind with
  song as soft as morning drizzle.

Light touched my gaze with stained glass colors,
a struggle to understand amorphous
shapes that drifted like clouds and vanished
amid this song that grazed awareness.

Slowly, shapes became still and acquired
purpose and meaning—a name for each;
even the curious shape that stared back from
every silver reflection was named.

Seasons passed; the sidewalk laurels
cast their sundial shadows across long
years, expanding and shrinking with time as
understanding grew with the bones.

One day I began to seek the source of
this subtle song that brushed my skin like
static electric potentials—a nameless
song that moved like a wind from nowhere.

Though I could hear like waters rumpling
in darkness this abstract song, the stream
itself could not be found, nor the place
from whence its waters issued forth.

And thus it went as my long walk began,
I followed this ubiquitous sound without so
much as a clue from whence it came
and found only earth, the sky, and the stars.

For everywhere the song was heard;
where neon, steel and concrete rise up
from desperate shadows it was heard, and
where tempest waves besiege dark cliffs.

Where gray stone monuments stand silent
guard in fields of grass it echoed
like a dirge, and where rotting sideboard
peeled away from homes abandoned.

Where old growth sugar pines sway tall in
coastal alpine vales it shimmered, and
where winds etch patterns in swaying stands of
maize as far as the eye can see.

Where granite peaks protrude through clouds
it whispered ever so softly, and where
the sagebrush dream in the quiet light of
a half moon drifting in opal darkness.

For years I listened, searching on,
this strange and subtle song reechoed
always through my thoughts, yet never
nearing once its secret spring.

And so this dreamlike quest for insight
slowly waned for lack of headway
until more practical concerns
took hold, demanding all attention.

For in a world where everyone’s an
expert and none admit to knowing
nothing on any subject broached,
I learned no clues about this song.

No clues, but yet I hear it still,
all around—in everything from
stones within the riverbed to
red bricks mortared in the wall.

The song lifts up from dragonflies,
June bugs strong upon the air,
houseflies on the windowsill, and
silver moths that circle streetlamps.

It burgeons forth from hardy black oaks,
aspens shimmering through the air,
blue spruce towering near the ridgetop,
and alders lurking by the stream.

It emanates from grand paulownias,
little cloud-like stands of yarrow,
trillium gleaming in the forest,
and roses rioting by the fence.

It even wells from manmade things,
the favorite coffee cup, the car,
the painting in the living room,
the lamp, the nightstand, and the bed.

All things sing their beingness
amid the beingness of all,
yet no thing gives away the place from
whence the songs of all things rise.

The song remains a mystery,
an all pervasive mystery
that resonates a sentience,
a presence, and an intellect.

And as the years advance I learn
to just accept it as it is; for
this song that manifests us all
is that great mystery within.

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I’ll find you

I suddenly realized there was an entry in my large journal that hadn’t yet been transcribed to ASCII. When I read it over, I realized it might be worth turning into an actual poem.

I’ll find you

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

The “you” in focus here is the creative self.

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Frostlight

Sometimes when critiquing a poem, I’ll try to exemplify what I mean by using unique imagery to replace a more common exposition. I’m not religious person, but what I’ve attempted to depict here is the common idea of “a delight in and a desire for the divine”, which has been stated a couple trillion times by a couple billion individuals throughout history. So, what could such a thought look if it were purely depictive?

Frostlight

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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The Distant Self

Lately I have been pondering the nature of death, what it really is. Is it closing your eyes one last time never to wake up? Or is it something more subtle, more unnerving—something much closer to home? When I look back through time to the teenager I once was, that person is not here. He is dead, and he has been dead for a very long time. But because I am still strong and somewhat clear of mind, I can forget that death and focus on the present life as if it now unfolds. But the reality is, there are moments, days, circumstances that I would hold onto for eons if it were possible—but they have long since passed and are dead.

The Distant Self

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

Perhaps the movement between carnal death and birth is much the same. Even after that point of presence jumps from our last breath to some unfathomable new context, there is a recognition somewhere in our newly manifest being that something has been lost—a past and fully developed identity. Perhaps this death occurs on a lesser scale over and over throughout the experience of living. And those who see this most clearly are those who still live after everything else has been lost, and all they have left is to struggle for moments of clarity while wasting away in a nursing home.

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Companion

Maybe Time is more of a companion than she is—as many people feel—a tyrant. She is always with us, never leaves our side for a moment, and forever offers at least one consolation—that whatever our woes, these too will pass, one way or the other. This consolation has been perhaps the prime influence on my will to survive long, hard, bitter years in the face of an ever uncertain future.

Companion

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.